NOVEMBER 2013 SNOWDEN & MURDOCH & CAMERON AND AUSTRALIA
Last month I called David Cameron, PM of UK a hypocrite.

Now the proverbial has hit the fan in Australia. Snowden papers
show that ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) has been
dipping into Indonesian telecommunications. The Indonesians are
outraged. If David Cameron can be outraged by "News Of The
World's" Rebekah Brookshacking phones in the UK, then how much more is the Indonesian
government entitled to be outraged about ASIO hacking their personal
communications?

The world has moved on, and old ideas of privacy just do not
work. It is ridiculous that I cannot take photographs in public
spaces and not publish them (on say Facebook) without getting
permission from various public bodies and persons, or be at risk of
legal action for invasion of privacy.

If people do not want people trespassing on their land, they must
provide unclimbable fences and locked gates. If people do not
want others to overhear their conversations, they should conduct them
in secure locations. If people do not want their image appearing
in published photographs, they should only appear in public wearing
clothing that covers those parts of their bodies that they want to keep
private.

Perhaps the average non nerd does not realise just how vulnerable the
mobile
phone network is. I am totally uninterested in buying or building
a scanner and listening in on telephone conversations between
neighbours and third parties. But I know that it would be easy to
do. So if I had a communication that I wanted to keep private, I
would not use a phone.

What we need to do is abolish any "right to privacy". It is as
unenforceable as are our gun control laws. That is because
criminals
have handguns, but the good guys obey the law and don't. This
gives the rest of us a false
sense of security, because we don't see handguns anywhere except on the
belts of policemen. Until we are confronted by the gun wielding
criminal who kills or robs us.

In like manner, all the bad guys can listen in on your mobile phone
calls, and because the good guys can't, you get a false sense of
security.

So a message to David Cameron and Tony Abbott and Barak Obama.
Admit you were wrong. All of you should enact laws that abolish
privacy. Otherwise you must apologise to
Indonesia and withdraw the legal actions against Manning, Assange and
Snowden
and Rebekah Brooks.

If you insist that invasion of privacy is prohibited for your citizens,
then to remain consistent you must hold an inquiry and gaol the
ministers
and officials who
were responsible for invading other nation's privacy.

Who was Foreign
Minister in Australia at the relevant time? Was it Rudd?
Who was responsible for foreign affairs in USA? Was it
Hillary? Who initiated presecution of Rebekah
Brooks? Was that Cameron? Who runs
the NSA? OK. I don't mind if those people serve time.